This won't happen Julia. Unlike Britain, America is not an elective dictatorship. Obama's presidency will still have to deal with Congress and as we saw with the bail-out, Congress actually listens to its constituents now and again.

"This is why Camoron's election would be one string of disappointments for the far right, & as much as I dislike him he'd be closer to my views than yours."

Who cares whether the 'far right' are disappointed. There's only a handful of 'em!

It's the real conservative majority (the one that prefers government not be used as a combination sinecure for luvvies and trust-fund hogs and agency for 'social change') that'll be disappointed in a Cameron premiership.

Obama is - like Blair in 1997 - a blank slate on which people of all political beliefs wrote their own manifesto. He'll have a honeymoon stretching well into his second term when, whatever he does, the wheels will come off his presidency. Why? Because his only motive (like Blair's) for gaining political power is to reach the top of the greasy pole and enjoy his pre-eminence there. His "policies" are - like Blair's - feel-good non-policies and (as ross writes) he will be able to write off all his early failures as due to the Bush legacy. It's going to be a very expensive and, in the end, rough ride for the US and, by extension, for the world.

What I want to know is this: if conservatism is such a marginalised ideology, how come the left is so anxious to to route everything via the courts/quangos/satanic cults etc, rather than via the democratic process?

As I understand it Barack Obama's 5% win over McCain proves that conservatism is moribund and that the country wants 'change', whereas when Bush won by 3% in 2004 it demonstrated how divided America was. The 2% difference is crucial apparently.